Horse coins (Traditional Chinese: 馬錢; Simplified Chinese: 马钱; Pinyin: mǎ qián), alternatively dama qian (打馬錢), are a type of Chinese numismatic charm that originated in the Song dynasty (or as early as the Tang dynasty) and presumed to have been used as gambling tokens. Although many literary figures wrote about these coins their usage has always been failed to be mentioned by them. Most horse coins tend to be round coins, 3 centimeters in diameter with a circular or square hole in the middle of the coin. The horses featured on horse coins are depicted in various positions such as lying asleep on the ground, turning their head while neighing, or galloping forward with their tails rising high. it is currently unknown how horse coins were actually used though it is speculated that Chinese ho